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In the UVA Rape Case, Liberals Dismayed to Learn that Facts Matter

Let me start this piece out by saying that I don’t know one way or another whether the now infamous alleged gang rape of a UVa student (as reported in Rolling Stone) happened. Obviously, I wasn’t there, I’ve never talked to any of the people involved to personally assess their credibility, and I have no means or opportunity to investigate the alleged background facts to corroborate them against the story as reported in Rolling Stone, so I’m in simply no position to say whether it is true or not. The problem for liberals is that literally everyone else in the world other than Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the piece, is in the exact same position as I am. Yet they nonetheless equate expressing any level of skepticism about the story with being a 9/11 truther. With this story, as with so many other stories peddled by liberals in the service of their causes, what is more important to them is not the actual facts of the story itself, but rather whether the larger overarching narrative served by the story is true. As incredible as it seems, “fake but accurate” seems to be a legitimate way to see the world for these people, as opposed to a joke told by a now-disgraced former news anchor.

For background on this particular story, after Rolling Stone published their sensational piece, one of the former editors of serial fabulist Stephen Glass (read, a liberal), began a firestorm of controversy by publishing a piece that suggested – in a very mild way – that he himself had been burned by uncritically accepting stories written by Glass that confirmed his preconceived notions about the world, and that some elements of the story merited further scrutiny before the story was used as a vehicle to push the national narrative about “rape culture.” Since then, several other news organizations have picked up the thread and at least shown marginal interest in actually corroborating the facts of the story. The response from the left has been predictable in its shrieking intensity and preachiness.

Keep in mind: literally no one is saying the story is absolutely not true; rather only that basic facts about the story should be corroborated before an entire university is burned at the stake. This rather basic tenet of journalism is actually seen by liberals as inappropriate behavior somehow, …read more